Method and device for managing communications activities

ABSTRACT

A method is disclosed for managing communication processes (N 1 -N 4 ) between internal participants (A, B, C) of an internal communication network on the one hand and external participants (E) on the other hand. First a list is set up in an internal communication network that contains incoming and outgoing communication activities between the internal participants and at least one external participant as a virtual mailbox. This virtual mailbox is assigned to the at least one external participant and is set up to be invisible or inaccessible to the at least one external participant. Communications activity between an internal participant and the external participant are recognized as being associated with the external participant based upon identification that has been assigned to the external participant and can be obtained from the communication activity. Each communication activity that has been recognized as being associated with the external participant is deposited in the virtual mailbox.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/928,421, which is a continuation application ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/200,758, which claims priority toGerman Patent Application No. DE 102013004363.8, filed on Mar. 12, 2013.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The invention relates to a method and a device for managingcommunication activities.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In communication networks with multiple internal participants, includingbut not limited to those in larger companies, communication withexternal partners such as business partners, customers, etc. is oftenconfusing. External persons can exploit this by means of targeted verbalor written approaches to different potential internal contact partners,in order to gain some advantages based on different and potentiallyinconsistent replies. In conventional communication systems, an externalperson E may communicate with several internal persons A, B, C, orconversely several internal persons may communicate with the sameexternal person E, without the internal persons A, B, C, . . . knowingof each other or of their communication with the external person E.Thus, the external person E may receive differing and uncoordinatedpieces of information. It is therefore easy for the external person E toexploit this situation by, for example, sending inquiries as separateelectronic messages (e-mails or the like) separately to persons A, B, C.

Such an arrangement is illustrated in FIG. 3. FIG. 3 shows a mail server100 of a company network for a company XYZ that is connected to theinternet 102 via not-illustrated means such as a gateway or the like.The mail server 100 manages a mailbox 104 that is accessible by a mailclient 106. The mail client 106 may be set up on a workstation for whicha person 108 (person A) has a user profile. Instead of being set up on aworkstation, the mail client 106 can also be set up on a smartphone,tablet or laptop computer or another such device. Below, mailbox 104will also be referred to as the mailbox of person A because it is set upexclusively for and assigned to person A (108). Mailbox 104 can beaddressed from the outside via the Internet 102, for example by usingthe address personA@companyXYZ.com. Likewise, the mail server 100manages a mailbox 110, which can be accessed by a mail client 112 of aperson 114 (person B), and which can be addressed, for example, usingthe address personB@companyXYZ.com and a mailbox 116, which can beaccessed by a mail client 118 of a person 120 (person C), and which canbe addressed, for example, using the address personC@companyXYZ.com. Anexternal person 122 (person E) has access to a mail server 124 with amailbox 126 via not-illustrated means, which can be addressed, forexample, using the address personE@memberServer.net. In the shownsituation, person E sends three messages N1, N2, N3 via the internetusing server 124 and using the addresses of the mailboxes 104, 110, 116of the internal persons A, B, C. The messages N1, N2, N3 are received inthe mail server 100 and assigned to or deposited in the mailboxes 104,110, 116. i.e., message N1 is deposited in mailbox 104 of person A,message N2 in mailbox 110 of person B and message N3 in mailbox 116 ofperson B. Person B replies to message N2 with a message N4.

FIGS. 4A to 4C show the situation from the perspective of persons A, B,C, or more precisely the perspective of person A on a message list(postbox) 105 of mailbox 104 illustrated by mail client 106, theperspective of person B on a message list (postbox) 111 of mailbox 110illustrated by mail client 112 and the perspective of person C on amessage list (postbox) 117 of mailbox 116 illustrated by mail client118. As illustrated in FIG. 4A, only the message N1 addressed to personA appears in the message list 111 of person A; as illustrated in FIG.4B, only the message N2 addressed to person B as well as the response ofperson B, message N4, to the external person E appears in the messagelist 105 of person B; and as illustrated in FIG. 4C, only the message N3addressed to person C appears in the message list 117 of person C. Thus,persons A, B, C have no knowledge of the fact that the respective othertwo persons were sent a message and neither person A nor C can see thereply N4 of person B.

To work around this problems, various work-around solutions have beenemployed to date. FIG. 5 illustrates a case where a central mailbox 128is set up in the previously described mail server 100 and can beaddressed via the internet 102 from the outside using the addressZentrale@companyXYZ.com. Furthermore, an internal area 130 is defined inwhich the person-related mailboxes 104, 110, 116 of persons A, B, C areset up. The internal area 130 cannot be addressed from the outside viathe internet; rather the mailboxes 104, 110, 116 serve only the internalcommunication inside the company XYZ. Different from FIG. 3, the mailclients 106, 112, 118 of persons A, B, C not only have access to theirown mailboxes 104, 110, 116 but also at least read access to the centralmailbox 128, i.e., all internal persons A, B, C can read a message N5that has been directed via the Internet to the central mailbox 128 anddeposited there. In this arrangement, messages directed from the outsideto the internal mailboxes 104, 110, 116 are rejected. Alternatively,messages directed from the outside to the internal mailboxes 104, 110,116 can also go to the central mailbox 128; however, this may not bedesirable due to privacy issues of persons A, B, C. Messages directed tothe outside can be provided with the identification of the centralmailbox 128 such that the personal mailboxes 104, 110, 116 remain hiddento the outside.

Such a solution according to FIG. 5 can be perceived as impersonal byexternal persons such as person E and can be an obstacle to establishingcontact. Instead of a central mailbox, several group mailboxes may beset up for different departments or work groups within the company XYZand may be visible to a limited number of people. However, aside fromthe increased management effort for assigning access rights, the problemof an impersonal appearance toward the outside remains essentially thesame. In addition, it is difficult for outsiders to assign the correctgroup address when attempting to contact a certain person inside companyXYZ.

In a variation of the solution described above and illustrated in FIG.6, the central mailbox 128 is managed additionally by an administrativeentity 132 that can be accessed by a manager 136 (person M) via amanagement client 134, which is set up as a workstation, for example.Forwarding of messages that have arrived at the central mailbox 128 viathe internet 102, for example, is coordinated centrally via theadministrative entity 132, i.e., the management client 132 and/or theadministrator 136 decide to which internal mailbox 104, 110 and/or 116 amessage N6 shall be forwarded based on message header elements orcontents of the incoming message N6. Although this solution protects theprivacy of persons A, B, C in relation to each other, it is just asimpersonal to the outside and requires great expenditure in personneland a high degree of alertness, since this cannot always be automated.

FIG. 7 shows a similar system in which multiple group mailboxes 138,140,142, 144 are set up that can be addressed from the outside via theInternet 102 using their respective group e-mail address such asinfo@companyXYZ.com, support@companyXYZ.com, einkauf@companyXYZ.com,verkauf@companyXYZ.com. The group mailboxes 138-144 are managed via acustomer relationship system (CRM system) 146. The internal persons A,B, C are provided the ability to see all requests and replies via thegroup mailboxes 138-144 using a web-based system, for example. Even ifthe external person E dispatches several messages N7-N10 to therespective group mailboxes 138-144, they are combined via the CRM andmade transparent toward the inside. The reply N4 of person B is providedby the CRM system 146 with the group e-mail address appropriate forperson B (in the shown example verkauf@companyXYZ.com) as the sender andis sent to person E via the internet. However, using the CRM system 146is expensive and does not cover personal e-mail addresses.

Another known work-around illustrated in FIG. 8 is to keep the personalmailboxes 104, 110, 116 addressable from the outside but allowinternally reciprocating at least read rights for other personalmailboxes. As illustrated in FIG. 8, the mail client 106 of the internalperson 108 (person A) has direct access to that person's own mailbox 104(see solid line between mail client 106 and mailbox 104), i.e., can seeincoming and outgoing messages that are deposited in this mailbox or candisplay them for person A as well as transfer messages that are enteredby person A to mailbox 104 of person A for transmission, whereupon mailserver 100 provides the message with a message header including themailbox address of mailbox 104 and sends the message. At the same time,mail client 106 has read access to mailboxes 110, 116 of persons B and C(see dashed lines between mail client 106 and mailboxes 110, 116), i.e.,can see messages that are deposited in these mailboxes 110, 116 anddisplay them for person A. The same applies analogously to thecommunications of persons B and C, i.e., the mail client 112 of person114 (person B) has direct access to that person's own mailbox 110 (solidline) and read access to the mailboxes 104, 116 (dash-dot lines) ofpersons A and C, and the mail client 118 of the person 120 (person C)has direct access to that person's own mailbox 116 (solid line) and readaccess to the mailboxes 104, 110 (dotted lines) of persons A and B. Sucha solution is associated with a loss of privacy and is also subject tothe problem that, although in principle relevant messages to externalpersons can also be found on other personal mailboxes, they require atargeted search activity for every act of communication.

A purely manual solution would be to “share” an outgoing messageinternally by increasing the distribution group, for example. Existingfunctions of e-mail programs such as CC (carbon copy) or BCC (blindcarbon copy) are used for this purpose. However, the CC method has thedisadvantage that the distribution group is also revealed to theoutside. The BCC method, which avoids this disadvantage, on the otherhand increases the internal intransparency because none of the internalrecipients know who else received this message. In addition, thesesolutions require increased discipline and attention in order toconsistently select the correct distribution for each communicationactivity.

In summary, the work-around solutions used to date suffer at least inpart from the disadvantages that they present an impersonal image to theoutside, for example, or that they require strict, consistent handlingby the persons involved.

One goal of the present invention is to eliminate at least in part thedisadvantages in the prior art. One particular goal of the presentinvention is to create consistent communication activity with externalparticipants that is transparent internally and not transparent to theoutside.

According to the invention, this goal is achieved at least in partialaspects by the features of the independent claims. Advantageousembodiments and developments of the invention are provided in thedependent claims.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

According to one aspect of the invention, a method for managingcommunication activities between internal participants of an internalcommunication network on the one hand and external participants on theother hand is proposed, wherein the method is executed in the internalcommunication network and comprises the following steps: setting up alist in the internal communication network for listing incoming andoutgoing communication activities between the internal participants andat least one external participant as a virtual mailbox that is assignedto the at least one external participant, wherein the virtual mailbox isset up to be invisible or inaccessible to the at least one externalparticipant; recognizing a communication activity between at least oneinternal participant and the at least one external participant as beingassociated with the at least one external participant based on anidentification that can be assigned to the at least one externalparticipant and can be obtained from the communication activity;depositing each communication activity that has been recognized as beingassociated with the external participant in the virtual mailbox; andreleasing the virtual mailbox to at least one selected internalparticipant.

In terms of the invention, any exchange of information that occurselectronically via a communication network is understood to be acommunication activity, i.e., in particular an electronic message(so-called e-mail), chat message, voice message, short text message(SMS), telephone or VoIP communication, fax, electronic letter copy,video message, etc. In terms of the invention, a communication networkrefers to a structure that is set up to exchange communication databetween multiple terminal points and that uses for this purpose one ormore protocols specified for communication networks, such as TCP/IP,ISDN, FTP or the like. In terms of the invention, an internalcommunication network refers to a communication network that is onlyaccessible to a restricted group of participants via authorized accesssuch as a LAN, in particular a company network or the like, wherein aninternal participant may be any participant that has authorized accessto a communication node or communication terminal within the internalcommunication network, and an external participant is any entity that islocated outside the internal communication network but is able tocommunicate with the internal communication network via an externalcommunication network such as the Internet, a telephone network, a radionetwork or the like. In terms of this invention and within the scope ofthis application, everything that is part of the internal communicationnetwork is designated as internal and everything that is not part of theinternal communication network is designated as external.

In terms of the invention, a mailbox is a service that allows access tocommunication activities such as messages that are deposited therein.Typically, each internal participant is assigned a mailbox in which theinternal participant's communication traffic is deposited, wherein theassignment is established via a participant identification of theinternal participant. Typically all incoming and outgoing communicationactivities are stored as respective data elements in a central database,such as a communication database, that is managed by a server. If thecommunication activity is an electronic message, the data element can beessentially identical to the message but may also contain additionalinformation such as a time stamp, information about previous messagesreferenced by this message, personal notes, etc. In cases of voicecommunication, the data element can contain, for example, raw data for atelephone or VoIP contact such as time, duration and connectionrecognition of the involved participant, potentially an audio streamand/or a communication protocol generated via an ASR machine, in casesof a video contact potentially also an image stream, in other cases, forexample, image data or PDF copies or OCR data of a fax, a transmittedimage or a video message or the like.) The mailbox service can build adata structure that contains references to the respective data elementsin the central database. The data structure can be built at everycall-up of the service by a client and only for the duration of anactivity by the participant or can be set up permanently in anon-volatile memory or mass storage device and can be updated at a newcall-up with communication activities that have been added since thelast conclusion. In this case, depositing a communication activity in amailbox is understood to include a reference to the data element in thecentral database. The mailbox can be presented to a user who isauthorized to access the mailbox in the form of a list from which theuser can select one or more messages and display the selectedcommunication activity in its entirety, re-sort the messages or deletethem from the mailbox. Fundamentally, the mailbox service can also buildits own mailbox structure as a data structure for the respectiveparticipant and can store copies, meaning that at least essentiallycomplete reproductions of the communication activities of the respectiveinternal participant are recorded; in this case, depositing acommunication activity can be equated with setting up an entirereproduction of the communication activity in the mailbox database. Themailbox service can be carded out either from a communication server orfrom a communication client of the user; mixed solutions are conceivableas well. In terms of the invention, a virtual mailbox refers to amailbox that is not specifically assigned to an internal participant.For example, a virtual mailbox may display communication activities thatmeet certain criteria such as a certain period of a date stamp, therecognition of spam or the like, and can be used for managementpurposes.

According to this perspective, a present preferred embodiment of theinvention is characterized in that a virtual mailbox is set up for butis invisible or inaccessible to at least one external participant. Eachcommunication activity that has been recognized as being associated withthe at least one external participant, based on identification, isdeposited in the virtual mailbox, and the virtual mailbox is released toall or to at least one selected internal participant, i.e., all internalparticipants or the at least one selected internal participant. In termsof the invention, identification is information contained in acommunication activity that allows for an inference about a participantin the communication activity, such as an e-mail address, a telephone orfax number, a chat name, a reference indicator, a ticket number, asearch term in the subject line or a message text, but also an addressrange such as “all e-mail addresses of a certain domain” (in other wordsa URL) or the like. In terms of the invention, releasing a virtualmailbox refers to the fact that the virtual mailbox allows access by theinternal participant, wherein access includes at least reading. In manycases reading is sufficient and thus access is preferably restricted toreading. However, there may be reasons to allow modification, forexample by an administrator. Releasing the virtual mailbox means thatthe copy of the communication activities deposited in the virtualmailbox is at least visible for the internal participants.

By the fact that the virtual mailbox is released for reading to all orat least one internal participant, the internal participant can not onlyread his own communication traffic but also view the communicationtraffic between other internal participants and the external participantand/or take it into account in a subsequent consideration of theexternal participant. In this manner, all internal participants (forexample all employees of a company within a company network), a groupthereof, or only one of them can be allowed to have consistentcommunication with the external participant. Replies from an internalparticipant to incoming communication activities (e.g., e-mails) can beviewed immediately by the other internal participants, and replies fromone internal participant can be coordinated with already given repliesfrom other internal participants. An internal participant can also seeevery communication activity arriving from the external participant toother internal participants, and the internal participants can thereforecoordinate with each other.

The arrangement described above makes it fundamentally possible for allinternal participants to have access to the virtual mailbox. If accessto the virtual mailbox is to be restricted to a selected participant,then on the one hand it can be ensured that only participants who are orcan be dealing with the external person are involved in thecommunication activities with an external person. On the other hand, itcan be avoided that private contacts of an internal participant areexposed within the internal communication network. The selection ofparticipants can be accomplished by assigning access privileges, forexample.

By the fact that the virtual mailbox is invisible or not available, forexample not accessible, or cannot directly communicate with the at leastone external participant, the possibility of internal coordination canbe hidden from the outside.

In one concrete embodiment of the invention, multiple virtual mailboxesare set up, each being assigned to at least one external participant. Inanother embodiment of the invention, the method includes the step ofsetting up a new virtual mailbox or depositing in a temporary virtualmailbox if a communication activity is not recognized as beingassociated with an external participant that is assigned to an existingvirtual mailbox. In this manner, an administrator may be given theopportunity, for example, to register a previously unknown externalparticipant, to recognize a previously unknown identification of anessentially known external participant and assign said externalparticipant to an existing virtual mailbox, and the like. For thispurpose, the newly set-up virtual mailboxes can be indicated as such andafter processing can be deleted if the communication activitiescontained therein can be assigned to an existing virtual mailbox, or canbe retained as the virtual mailboxes for the respective new externalparticipants.

In another embodiment of the invention, the method includes the steps ofproviding a list with communication activities of an internalparticipant and adding communication activities from one or severalvirtual mailboxes to the list when the communication activities concerna participant with which the internal participant has communicatedpreviously or is communicating or is preparing to communicate, and ifthe communication activities are not already contained in the list.Providing a list with the internal participant's own communicationactivities is included in typical mailbox functions. If communicationactivities from one or more virtual mailboxes of external participantsare added to the list, it is possible for the internal participant toimmediately recognize which communication activities have already takenplace between other internal participants and the external participant,even if the internal participant has not been involved in thecommunication activity, not even in copy. This simplifies thecoordination of that person's own communication with the externalparticipant and frees the internal participant from the need to considerother internal participants in the distribution because they too areshown their own communication with the external participant. Preparingto communicate can refer to, for example, entering an externalparticipant's address into an address field, dialing an externalparticipant's telephone number or the like, after which, according tothe method, other internal participants' communication activities withthe external participant are displayed autonomously.

In another embodiment of the invention, adding communication activitiesfrom virtual mailboxes is restricted to those virtual mailboxes fromwhich at least one identification corresponds to at least oneidentification of a communication activity selected by the internalparticipant from the list provided to the internal participant. In otherwords, the internal participant sees, when selecting a communicationactivity from his mailbox, for example by clicking, marking or opening,a display of the communication activities conducted with the externalpersons involved in the selected communication activity, even if hehimself was not involved in these communication activities. At the sametime, the internal participant will be spared from other communicationactivities with external persons that he may not be interested in at thetime.

In another embodiment of the invention, adding communication activitiesfrom virtual mailboxes can be selected and deselected by the internalparticipant. As a result, the internal participant can optimize theclarity and user-friendliness of his mailbox list.

In another embodiment of the invention, the method includes the step ofdistinguishing a communication activity in the list such that one canrecognize whether the communication activity is assigned to a virtualmailbox or to the internal person's own mailbox. This simplifieshandling and eliminates the need to check each time whether one was aparticipant in the communication activity.

In another embodiment of the invention, the method includes the steps ofrecognizing the private nature of a communication activity andpreventing a communication activity whose private nature has beenrecognized from being deposited in the virtual mailbox. The privatenature of a communication activity can be indicated, for example, by anidentification that is to be set by the internal person who is aparticipant in the communication activity.

The invention also concerns all devices that are configured to executethe method described above. The problem addressed by the presentinvention is solved by these devices for the same reasons as the onesstated above for the corresponding method. The device can be a singleunit such as a workstation, a mail server computer, smartphone, tabletcomputer, laptop or the like, a module such as a pc-board to beinstalled in a device, or can be a system consisting of one or moreindividual devices and/or modules or a computer network withinterconnected devices and/or modules. It is understood that the methodcan also be embodied in a computer program, a software product or adigital storage medium.

Additional features, tasks, advantages and details of the presentinvention will become more apparent from the following description ofconcrete exemplary embodiments and their presentation in drawings in theincluded figures. It is understood that features, tasks, advantages anddetails of individual exemplary embodiments are transferrable to otherexemplary embodiments and are considered to be disclosed also inconnection with the other exemplary embodiments unless this is obviouslyinapplicable for technical or physical reasons. Exemplary embodimentscan be combined with other exemplary embodiments and that combinationcan also be considered an exemplary embodiment of the invention.

The invention is described below in more detail based on pre e edexemplary embodiments and with reference to the figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating handling of a message by a mailserver one exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 2A to 2C are block diagrams of a message presentation by mailclients of respective internal persons in one exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating handling of a message by a mailserver of the prior art.

FIGS. 4A to 4C are block diagrams illustrating handling of a message bymail clients of respective internal persons according to the prior art.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating handling of a message by a mailserver according to another prior art.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating handling of a message by a mailserver according to an additional prior art.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating handling of a message by a mailserver according to yet another prior art.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating handling of a message by a mailserver according to a recent prior art.

The figures are schematic presentations and are not necessarily drawnaccording to scale. The illustrations in drawings and the descriptionsthereof shall be considered exemplary illustrations of the principle ofthe invention and shall in no way restrict the invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

A basic exemplary embodiment of the present invention is illustrated inFIG. 1. The illustration in FIG. 1 shows a mail server 200 of a companynetwork for a company XYZ that is connected to the internet 202 vianot-illustrated means such as a gateway or the like. The mail server 200manages a mailbox 204 that is accessible by a mail client 206. Thismeans that the mail client 206 can see and display messages deposited inmailbox 204, and also permits manipulations such as deleting,identifying (for example as spam) messages and the like. Furthermore,the mail client 206 can also dispatch messages via mailbox 204 i.e., cancause the mail server 200 to send a message with the identification ofthe mailbox 204. This comprehensive administrative access is symbolizedin the figure by a solid line. The mail client 206 may be set up on aworkstation for which a person 208 (person A) has a user profile.Instead of being set up on a workstation, the mail client 206 can alsobe set up on a smartphone, tablet or laptop computer or another suchdevice. Below, mailbox 204 will also be referred to as person A'smailbox, because it is set up exclusively for and assigned to person A(208). Mailbox 204 can be addressed from the outside via the Internet202, for example via the address personA@companyXYZ.com.

Likewise, the mail server 200 manages a mailbox 210 of a person B, whichcan be accessed comprehensively by a mail client 212 of a person 214(person B), and which can be addressed, for example, using the addresspersonB@companyXYZ.com, and a mailbox 216 of a person C, which can beaccessed comprehensively by a mail-client 218 of a person 220 (personC), and which can be addressed, for example, using the addresspersonC@companyXYZ.com.

It shall be assumed that an external person 222 (person E) has access toa mail server 224 with a mailbox 226 using the internet 202 vianot-illustrated means, which can be addressed, for example, using theaddress personE@fremderServer.net. It shall be assumed further thatperson E sends three messages N1, N2, N3 to the internal persons A, B,C, i.e., person E causes the external mail server 224 to send themessages N1, N2, N3 via the internet using the addresses of themailboxes 204, 210, 216. As in the examples of the prior art, it shallfinally be assumed that person B replies to message N2 with a messageN4.

As shown in FIG. 1, the mail server 200 has a server interface 250 whichis set up to mirror incoming and outgoing messages to virtual mailboxesin the manner described below. One such virtual mailbox is illustratedin the figure as an example for any desired number of virtual mailboxes.The virtual mailbox 252 is assigned to the external person E, in otherwords to the identification of mailbox 226 used by the external personE. Mail server 200 is set up by explicit instruction of a user and/oradministrator and/or by automated rules for dynamically setting up andmanaging virtual mailboxes for external persons. Mail server 200 is alsoset up to assign a virtual mailbox to several aliases, i.e., alternateidentifications, of an external person. The server interface 250 is nowset up to mirror any communications concerning the external person E tothe virtual mailbox 252 that is assigned to this person, i.e., todeposit each message originating from that person E in both therecipient's mailbox and the virtual mailbox 252, and to send eachmessage directed from a mailbox 204, 210, 216 of an internal person A,B, C to the external person E via the Internet and to deposit it in thevirtual mailbox 252.

According to the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, each mail client 206, 212,218 of the internal persons A, B, C not only has direct access to itsown mailbox 204 or 210 or 216, respectively, but also sees the entiremessage traffic deposited in the virtual mailbox 252 (dotted line). Mailclients 206, 212, 218 are set up to recognize copies of their ownmailboxes 204 or 210 or 216, respectively, and to avoid a doubledisplay.

FIGS. 2A-2C illustrate in greater detail the situation from theperspective of persons A, B, C on the message traffic with the externalperson E. More precisely, FIG. 2A shows person A's perspective on amessage list (postbox) 205 of mailbox 204 displayed by mail client 206,FIG. 2B shows person B′s perspective on a message list (postbox) 211 ofmailbox 210 displayed by mail client 212 and FIG. 2C shows person C'sperspective on a message postbox) 217 of mailbox 216 displayed by mailclient 218.

As illustrated in FIG. 2A, a mail client 206 of person A has a clientinterface 254, which is connected with person A's own mailbox 204 andwith the virtual mailbox 252, and a message list 205. In actuality, themessage list 205 is a way of illustrating a message database in the formof a table that is displayed to person A on a suitable display device(not shown in detail). The message list 205 has multiple columns, ofwhich a subject column 205 a, a person column 205 b and a directioncolumn 205 c are shown in the figure. Additional columns may include areceived or sent date, a priority, a message size, a completionindicator, reference to file attachments or others. Entries on one andthe same message are each presented in one line in the message list 205.Thus, the client interface 254 sees both messages that have beendeposited in the person's own mailbox 204 and messages that have beendeposited in the virtual mailbox 252 of the external person E anddisplays them in person A's message list 205. Since the virtual mailbox252 also contains messages that are also deposited in the person's ownmailbox 204 because they are directed to person A or originate fromperson A (also referred to as own messages), and since it would beconfusing if such own messages were to appear twice in the message list207, the client interface 254 is set up to filter the own messages ofperson A from the messages of the virtual mailbox 252 or to block theirdisplay in the message list 207. Thus, each message that is deposited inboth the person's own mailbox 204 and the virtual mailbox 252 willappear only once in the message list 207.

More precisely, not only the message traffic conducted with person Awill appear in the message list 205, but also the message directed toperson A, the message N2 directed to person B as well as the reply(message) N4 of person B and the message N3 directed to person C. Thereply message N4 from person B is listed in a row below the message N2directed to person 6, indented and light-faced contrary to the ownmessage traffic, which is displayed in bold, such that an intuitiveoptical association is ensured; in an additional option, not shown indetail, several back-and-forth messages and replies can be linked in theform of a tree or indicated by successive indentation. Alternatively,different message sequences may be preferred. For example, messages maybe displayed in time sequence.

As illustrated in FIG. 2B, a mail client 212 of person B has a clientinterface 256, which is connected with person B's own mailbox 210 andwith the virtual mailbox 252 and a message list 211. Reference is madeto the description of person A's message list 205 regarding thestructure and properties of message list 211. The client interface 256sees both messages that have been deposited in the person's own mailbox204 and messages that have been deposited in external person E's virtualmailbox 252 and displays them in person B's message list 211, whereindouble-listing of own messages is avoided as in the above descriptionfor FIG. 2A.

As illustrated in FIG. 2C, a mail client 216 of person C has a clientinterface 258, which is connected with person C's own mailbox 214 andwith the virtual mailbox 252 and a message list 217. Reference is madeto the description of person A's message list 205 regarding thestructure and properties of message list 217. The client interface 258sees both messages that have been deposited in person C's own mailbox216 and messages that have been deposited in external person E's virtualmailbox 252 and displays them in person B's message list 217, whereindouble-listing of own messages is avoided as in the above descriptionfor FIG. 2A.

In summary, according to the illustrations in FIGS. 2A-2C, not only themessage traffic conducted with the respective person appears in each ofthe message lists 205, 211, 217 but also all messages N1-N3 directed bythe external person E to each internal person A, B, C, i.e., also thereply message N4 from person B. Thus, each of the persons A, B, C isinformed about the entire message traffic with the external person E andcan potentially coordinate his or her own answer, if still required,with the reply N4 from person B. Of course it is also possible that,prior to a reply, person B coordinates with persons A and C and theytogether agree on a consistent approach.

It is understood that the virtual mailbox 252 is visible only internallybut not from the outside, such that the internal coordination is nottransparent to the outside, i.e., the virtual mailbox 252 is located inan internal area 230, as is the case with all other virtual mailboxes.It is also possible to restrict the group of persons that has access tomailbox 252; in this case it is also possible that messages from personE that are addressed directly to an internal person who is excluded fromthe named group of persons are blocked by the server interface 250 orare forwarded to an administrator or to another decision-making entity.

It is furthermore understood that, in addition to the virtual mailbox252, multiple additional virtual mailboxes can be connected to theclient interfaces 254, 256, 258, depending on the number of set-upvirtual mailboxes and on which virtual mailboxes are to be visible forthe persons A, B, C.

Although the present invention has been described and illustrated basedon an exemplary embodiment that refers to electronic message traffic(e-mails), the present invention is also applicable or expandable toether communication processes. For example, telephone messages that areexchanged via a telephone network not illustrated in detail, VoIPmessages or chat entries that are exchanged via the internet 202, faxmessages that are exchanged via the telephone network or the like can bemirrored into the virtual mailbox 252. For this purpose, the mail server202 may include respective services such as a speech recognition servicefar converting spoken messages into text, a VoIP service, a chatservice, an OCR service for recognizing text content and an imagedigitizing service for recognizing image content in fax messages, or thelike. In particular the invention can also be applied to unifiedcommunication systems that integrate other communication data inaddition to electronic message traffic. For example, a user couldalready receive information about the person with whom the externalperson E had the last conversation, or who in the company XYZ had calledthe external person, before making a call.

It should be pointed out that the image illustration of mail server 202serves only to demonstrate the functional relationships of the inventionand not so much the definition of device-related situations.Device-related details such as gateway entities, switch entities,address entities, message databases, communication units, bus systemsand the like are well known to a person skilled in the art and were notillustrated in detail in order to focus on the subject matter of thepresent invention. It is also not critical to understanding theinvention whether a server, gateway, message database, etc. areintegrated in one device, for example, or are distributed to severaldevices. It is in particular understood that the integration ofinterface 250 and the virtual mailbox in the mail server 200 is to beconsidered exemplary and that the described functions could also beimplemented using an entity that is associated with or not associatedwith or connected downstream and/or upstream of the mail server 220.Furthermore, functions assigned to the individual mail clients, inparticular for message management, can also be performed by the mailserver 200.

The features of the invention described in the shown embodiments canalso exist in other embodiments of the invention, except when statedotherwise or when impossible for technical reasons.

I claim:
 1. A method of managing communication processes betweeninternal participants of an internal communication network and externalparticipants, the method comprising: recognizing communicationactivities involving at least one external participant based on anidentification assigned to the at least one external participant forstoring communications in a virtual mailbox assigned to the at least oneexternal participant; depositing each communication activity recognizedas being associated with the at least one external participant in thevirtual mailbox such that the deposited communication activity isaccessible via access to the virtual mailbox; permitting the virtualmailbox to be accessed by a first internal participant via an internalcommunication network; communicating communications of the communicationactivities from the virtual mailbox to a first device of the firstinternal participant along with communications from at least one mailboxof the first internal participant such that the communications of thecommunication activities stored in the virtual mailbox andcommunications from at least one mailbox of the first internalparticipant are displayable in a single interface via the first device.2. The method of claim 1, wherein the internal participants comprise asecond internal participant and a third internal participant, the methodalso comprising: releasing the virtual mailbox to at least one selectedinternal participant.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the releasing ofthe virtual mailbox to at least one selected internal participantcomprises: permitting the virtual mailbox to be accessed by the secondinternal participant of the internal participants of the internalcommunication network; and communicating communications of thecommunication activities from the virtual mailbox to a second device ofthe second internal participant along with communications from at leastone mailbox of the second internal participant such that thecommunications of the communication activities and the communicationsfrom the at least one mailbox of the second internal participant aredisplayable in a single interface via the second device.
 4. The methodof claim 3, wherein at least one device of the internal network thathosts the virtual mailbox and the method also comprising: thecommunications server hosting the virtual mailbox and the at least onemailbox of the first internal participant, the at least one mailbox ofthe second internal participant, and the at least one mailbox of thethird internal participant.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the atleast one device of the internal network that hosts the virtual mailboxcomprises a communication server.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein thecommunication server is a mail server that hosts the at least onemailbox of the first internal participant and the at least one mailboxof the second internal participant.
 7. The method of claim 1,comprising: displaying, by the first device, the single interface suchthat a double listing of a message in the at least one mailbox of thefirst internal participant and that same message in the virtual mailboxis avoided.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the internal participantscomprise a second internal participant and the method also comprises:displaying, by a second device, the single interface such that a doublelisting of a message in the at least one mailbox of a second internalparticipant and that same message in the virtual mailbox is avoided. 9.The method of claim 1, wherein: the communicating of the communicationsof the communication activities from the virtual mailbox to the firstdevice of the first internal participant along with communications fromat least one mailbox of the first internal participant is performed suchthat a double listing of a message in the at least one mailbox of thefirst internal participant and that same message in the virtual mailboxis avoided.
 10. The method of claim 9, comprising: displaying, by thefirst device, the single interface such that messages of thecommunications of the communication activities of the virtual mailboxand messages of the communications from the at least one mailbox of thefirst internal participant are displayed in temporal sequence.
 11. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the communications of the communicationactivities of the virtual mailbox comprise email messages, and at leastone of: chat entries exchanged via the internet, fax messages, and voicemail messages.
 12. The method of claim 11, comprising: recognizing acommunication activity involving the at least one external participantand at least one of the first internal participant as being private andpreventing the communication activity recognized as being private frombeing accessible via the virtual mailbox.
 13. The method of claim 12,comprising: receiving input from the first internal participant thatidentifies the communication activity recognized as being private as aprivate communication such that at least one device of the internalnetwork recognizes the communication activity as being private toprevent the communication activity from being assessable via the virtualmailbox.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein the first device is acommunication device configured to run a first mail client.
 15. Anon-transitory computer readable medium having a program stored thereinthat defines a method that is performable by a device of an internalcommunication network that executes the program, the method comprising:setting up in the internal communication network a list of incoming andoutgoing communication activities between the internal participants andat least one external participant as a virtual mailbox that is assignedto the at least one external participant by: setting up a list ofincoming and outgoing communication activities involving the at leastone external participant as the virtual mailbox such that the virtualmailbox is hosted by the device of the internal communication networksuch that the virtual mailbox is invisible and inaccessible to the atleast one external participant; recognizing communication activitiesinvolving the at least one external participant based on anidentification assigned to the at least one external participant;depositing each communication activity recognized as being associatedwith the at least one external participant in the virtual mailbox suchthat the deposited communication activity is accessible via access tothe virtual mailbox; permitting the virtual mailbox to be accessed byinternal participants via the internal communication network, theinternal participants comprising a first internal participant;communicating communications of the communication activities from thevirtual mailbox to a first device of the first internal participantalong with communications from at least one mailbox of the firstinternal participant such that the communications of the communicationactivities and the communications from the at least one mailbox of thefirst internal participant are displayable in a single interface via thefirst device.
 16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim15, wherein the method also comprises: recognizing a communicationactivity involving the at least one external participant and the firstinternal participant as being private and preventing the communicationactivity recognized as being private from being accessible via thevirtual mailbox.
 17. The non-transitory computer readable medium ofclaim 15, wherein: the communicating of the communications of thecommunication activities from the virtual mailbox to the first device ofthe first internal participant along with communications from at leastone mailbox of the first internal participant is performed such that adouble listing of a message in the at least one mailbox of the firstinternal participant and that same message in the virtual mailbox isavoided.
 18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15,wherein the device of the internal communication network that is toexecute the program is a workstation, a communications server computer,a mail server computer, or a computer device of the internalcommunication network.
 19. A communication system comprising: aninternal network comprising: an internal network device configured tohost a virtual mailbox, and a first communication device of a firstinternal participant; the internal network device communicativelyconnectable to the first communication device; the internal networkdevice configured to set up a list of incoming and outgoingcommunication activities between at least one external participant andat least one of the first internal participant and a second internalparticipant as a virtual mailbox that is assigned to the at least oneexternal participant; the internal network device configured torecognize communication activities involving the at least one externalparticipant based on an identification assigned to the at least oneexternal participant and deposit each communication activity recognizedas being associated with the at least one external participant in thevirtual mailbox such that the deposited communication activity isaccessible via access to the virtual mailbox; the internal networkdevice configured to communicate communications of the communicationactivities from the virtual mailbox to the first communication device ofthe first internal participant along with communications from at leastone mailbox of the first internal participant such that thecommunications of the communication activities and the communicationsfrom the at least one mailbox of the first internal participant aredisplayable in a single interface via the first communication device.20. The system of claim 19, wherein: the internal network device isconfigured to communicate the communications of the communicationactivities from the virtual mailbox to the first communication devicealong with communications from at least one mailbox of the firstinternal participant such that a double listing of a message in the atleast one mailbox of the first participant and that same message in thevirtual mailbox is avoided; and wherein the internal network device isconfigured to recognize a communication activity involving the at leastone external participant and at least one of the first internalparticipant as being private and prevent a communication of thecommunication activity recognized as being private from being accessiblevia the virtual mailbox.